NSYNC, or nsync if i'm feeling lazy. Either way I usually don't bother with the apostrophe/asterisk.
25: Have you met anyone in *NSYNC?
Nope!
26: Favorite interview. (TV or print)
It's not a group one but I love this Rolling Stone interview Chris did after the VMAs. I can't really pinpoint why exactly. He's just so... real? Honest maybe. I love that he doesn't hesitate to say he and Lance were terrible dancers, haha.
I love every time they were on Rosie and they were always cute as heck whenever they showed up on Much Music, but my favorite TV interview was when they were on Donny & Marie. They were so on that day.
And this one isn't really an interview, but Chris & Joey on XL 106.7**. Day 2 especially, because it's full of anecdotes about how NSYNC formed and what it was like touring in Germany.
** (Uh, I guess the site doesn't allow direct links so copy the link location and paste it in the navigation bar.)
27: Funniest *NSYNC moment.
For me, the funniest moment would be that time they just started singing "Also Sprach Zarathustra" for no damn reason. It gets me every time. For one, it comes out of nowhere. They ended an interview and just decided "Hey, let's sing the song from 2001: A Space Odyssey." Two, it's an instrumental song! There are no lyrics! Just 5 dudes pretending they're an orchestra! And three, at some point they all sat down and figured out how to split the harmonies for it. Can you imagine? How bored were they when they did this? What other completely bullshit songs could they whip out at a moment's notice?
Fan: I was just wondering what you guys say to people that say you guys copy the Backstreet Boys.
Joey & JC: Jimmy crack corn...
All: AND WE DON'T CARE!
Ladies and gentlemen, *NSYNC.
Eat eat eat, all day long.
Eat eat eat, while I sing this song.
Eat eat eat, goldfish taste real good.
Eat eat eat, in your neighborhood!
Interviewer: So how did you guys get together?
Chris: Basically... Since I'm the oldest member of the group, I was born first, and um, I'll tell the story because I'm also the most intelligent member of *NSYNC.
Justin: So we let him think that.
JC: They were making fun of me this one time—
Justin: One time? We make fun of you all the time.
JC: So I looked at my food and said 'I have such a colorful plate...'
Teen People: Maybe JC deserves it.
Rosie: Now, who's nervous? Chris, you nervous about touring?
Chris: I'm not nervous about touring. I'm nervous about the stage. 'Cause every time, they wanna... We do, like, gags up above the audience and every time it just keeps getting higher and higher--
Justin: Chris is scared of heights.
Chris: I'm not scared of heights. I have a fear of heights.
Justin: ...Well, yes.
Chris: It's a phobia! I'm not, like, chicken.
Rosie: Yeah, no, sure. No, it's a real thing.
Chris: Yeah, it's a phobia!
Rosie: What about the No Strings Attached? When you were on the strings, was that the--
Chris: That was my "phobia" again. That was all... It'd bother me, but now it's like, you know, these guys. They think of stupid things and they wanna get higher...
Justin: We say, 'What can we do to terrify Chris?'
Chris: I'm not terrified, it's a phobia.
Cosmo Girl: Okay... "Joey: If a plane crashes on the border of Canada and the US, where do they bury the survivors?"
Joey: Aha! You can't bury survivors in the water! [everyone cracks up]
Cosmo Girl: What?! Where'd the water come from? The point is, you don't bury survivors!
Joey: Don't write that, please, I suck! I thought they were dead!
Cosmo Girl: "Joey: How many total animals did Moses bring on the ark?”
Joey: Wait... read it again. How many total animals did Moses...
JC: Moses didn't even have an ark!!
Cosmo Girl: Okay. Here's one for Chris: "Who was the first person to beat you at every or any sport, and how did you feel?"
Chris: Ooh, that's a good one, a serious one, too. Justin beat me in every sport. No wait: when I was like 7 years old I was on a Little League team and we sucked. Once I got beaned by a pitch.
Cosmo Girl: Did you get knocked unconscious?
Chris: No, but I had to take first base. We were playing T-Ball.
JC: But you don't pitch in T-Ball!
Chris: I know. I'm the only kid who got beaned by a pitch in T-Ball! (laughter)
Lance: Wouldn't you always get totally pissed at the kids who couldn't even hit the freakin' ball off the T?
JC: Lance is venting.
Cosmo Girl: "Lance, did you ever dirty up the ice at your snow-cone-factory job?”
Lance: Joey...
Joey: No, I did not write that one!
Lance: One time this bug flew into a cone I was making, but I didn't want to scoop it out because the customers were watching. So I just kind of covered it up.
Larry King: Let's take a call. Nickerson, Nebraska. For NSYNC, hello.
Caller: Hi. I was wondering if you guys wear boxers or briefs.
Larry King: Boxers or briefs. A Clinton question. Alright, let's go around.
Lance: I wear boxer-briefs.
JC: Boxer-briefs.
Justin: Is it Friday?
Lance: You know, what's funny is we were like, 'We're going on Larry King. We're not gonna get the boxer/brief question.'
JC: Got it, man!
Larry King: That's never happened on this show.
Chris: I'm actually wearing my underwear on the outside of my pants today.
Joey: You just can't see it.
Chris: And I just decided to sit the whole time, so...
Justin: We're very happy.
Chris: It's really uncomfortable.
(When asked how they feel about Justin getting all the attention.)
JC: It’s all good.
Chris: He’s our favorite too!
Chris, Joey & Justin: I'd like to buy a vowel. I'd like to buy an OHHHHHHH!
Chris: You know, Justin was supposed to be the lead character in Titanic.
Justin: Yeah, but I turned it down. I said "Why don't you go get, like, Leo?"
JC: Leo almost turned it down too, but he was like "Man, you offered it to Justin."
Justin: I said, "Man, I'm moving on to bigger and better things. Maybe you should give it to Leo."
JC: And Chris was going to be Kate Winslet.
Justin: I don't usually mess up but...
Chris: Well, I don't ever mess up either. I think it's the other three guys.
Justin: Yeah, it's the other guys...
Chris: They mess up a lot and we have to cover for them.
Justin: But that's what we have to deal with. Being who me and Chris are...
Chris: It happens when you're the cool guys of the group.
Joey: My stuff is never messy. I'm a neat person. [everyone groans]
Chris: And I suppose you don't smell either.
Lance: Joey's pretty bad for just wasting his money on weird stuff. I mean, the guy bought stilts!
Joey: The stilts are dope, man!
Chris: Let me tell you about this job. This job is hard work. This job is a lot of hotel rooms. [suddenly overcome with emotion] And this job is a lot of pain, man. I'm going through a lot of pain right now. But I've got my buds here and they're all supporting me, so it's not so bad.
Lance: This is when we take the mic away from Chris.
Lance: My last name is Bass, so I could be a fisherman or you know, a bass singer.
JC: I've had the same haircut for the past... four, five years. Everyone was like, "Man, I'm tired of lookin' at yo head like that."
JC: Everyone thinks I like to sleep. It’s not that I like to sleep, it’s that I don’t like to get up! There is a difference.
JC: There's a rule that we follow around here, and it's 'Don't Let Joey Talk.'
JC: Justin's getting sued by a girl who said I was hotter. I mean, I feel bad and all, but... we all know she's right.
Joey: Lance uses us like wild dogs. He holds us by the leash and waits for us to sniff people out and then he goes and meets them himself.
Joey: You see, JC matured too quickly. He peaked at the age of 15 and he's going downhill slowly. All he wants to do now is sleep.
Justin: The first hour I'm up, I'm completely upset at the world until I eat.
Justin: I have like this sparkly blue gel pen and I love it. It's my favorite. It's gonna break my heart when it runs out of ink.
Justin: I don’t care what JC says, if you bring me ice cream, I WILL let you in.
Justin: You know, the strangest part is that Chris is not on drugs.
Chris: When we were roughin' it back in the day, we would all have to share a hotel room and being in close quarters all the time, sometimes we drove ourselves crazy. And one time we were goofin' off and we threw Lance right into the wall and we had to pay for it, and well, Johnny wasn't too happy about that one!
Chris: So in other words, Lance has the sexy voice and we have each other.
Chris: I think it's awesome that Lance thought I was gay while we were in the band together.
Chris: It's a dude video. It has everything we like: trains, cars, chicks, and dogs. Well, maybe not trains. Cars, chicks and dogs we like. Trains was just thrown in ‘cause me and Joey didn't have anything to do.
Chris: I'm looking to set up a chain of Buddhist temples in malls. We're toying with calling them Nine Minute Nirvana.
Chris: We're gonna hold baby ostriches, ride big ostriches, and eat slow ostriches.
Chris: I don't know what to judge my football talent on. Maybe in the group, I'm one of the top five.
Chris: My nickname is Lucky because... I assume because I'm Irish -- Scotch-Irish -- and they just think I look like a leprechaun or something.
Chris: My mother claims that JC's her son when she points us out to her friends.
Chris: I was raised by my mom and 4 sisters, so I grew up thinking that women were the boss. Women are right, men are wrong. The end.
Chris: JC’s the worst. JC’s clueless a lot of times. And we all pick up on stuff easy. So, I’ll be, like, I’ll start in on something. I’ll be like, "Yeah, these rooms are great." And JC’ll be like, "Yeah, they’re all right." And I’m like, "Yeah, that Jacuzzi in the room is just amazing." And then Justin’ll pick up on it a little bit, and he’s like, "Yeah and the canopy goes over the bed. And the three little rooms in there..." And JC will start looking around going, "Hey, I didn’t get that stuff!"
Chris: The funny thing about JC is... well, say we're driving somewhere and we see a pretty girl on the sidewalk, the four of us will go, "Hey check out that girl." ...and five minutes later JC will go, "Wow, check out that dog. What kind is it?"
Chris: People who run humor sites rag on JC and Justin the most. That's justice.
Justin and Chris are a pair of precious nerds and I love them. Don't even get me started, ugh. For real though, aside from Joey and Lance, these two were the friendship of the group.
LOOK AT THEM. This is their relationship in a nutshell, honestly. Those idiots were almost always on the same wavelength and I love that they would always indulge each others random bouts of weirdness.
Sidebar: It's moments like the ones above that really make me realize how fucking young Justin was back then. He's so gangly in the last gif! God, he was just a baby when they first started.
Anyway, their relationship honestly fascinates me. I mean, Chris is like 10 years older than Justin and you'd have expected Justin to idolize JC considering they'd worked together on MMC, but nope! Justin latched onto Chris and never let go. Justin's blatant adoration of Chris was a huge part of why I liked him. Because, let's face it, Chris was a huge dork but Justin thought he was coolest guy in the world and that's adorable. I mean, he defended Chris's dreads once. If that's not love, I don't know what is.
And let's not forget Chris having practically adopted Justin as his baby brother. I love how supportive he was when Justin went solo. Like, the pictures of the two of them at the Justified album release party never fail to make me smile. And he gets so defensive whenever someone tries to talk shit about Justin. Chris is just so damn proud of how far his baby's come.
That video of Justin giving Chris a shout out during his 20/20 concert in Orlando gets me kind of emotional. "My brother Chris is in the house tonight! I love you, boy!" LIKE, CAN YOU NOT JUSTIN?
Siiiiigh. I miss the days when the two of them were inseparable.
19: An *NSYNC reunion has been announced! Make your ideal set list.
Let's just assume the guys would still be able to dance as well as they did back in the day.
01. Here We Go
02. Pop
03. Tearin' Up My Heart
04. I Want You Back
05. No Strings Attached
06. Celebrity - Celebrity Tour choreography
07. Up Against the Wall - Celebrity Tour choreography
08. Tell Me, Tell Me ...Baby
09. The Game is Over - without the video game themed choreography
10. Bee Gees Medley
11. Beatles Medley
12. Temptations Medley
13. Sailing
14. I'll Be Good For You
15. For the Girl Who Has Everything
16. Selfish
17. It's Gonna Be Me - *Ntimate Holiday Special arrangement
18. The Two of Us
19. Gone - rearranged to give JC a verse and better utilize their 5 part harmony
20. I Thought She Knew
21. I Drive Myself Crazy - NSA/Celebrtiy Tour version
22. This I Promise You - 2001 Grammy version
23. Do Your Thing
24. Girlfriend
25. Bye Bye Bye
Let's be real, guys. No one's into *NSYNC for their profound lyrics.
"Space Cowboy" gets a lot of flack for, well, being really fucking weird. I mean, really. But the lyrics really aren't that bad. Ok, the opening line is a clunker but Justin's verse is pretty good.
We don't need all these prophecies
Telling us what's a sign
'Cause paranoia ain't the way to live your life from day to day
So leave your doubts and your fears behind
Don't be afraid at all
'Cause up in outer space there's no gravity to fall
Put your mind and your body to the test
'Cause up in outer space it's like a wild wild west
JC, the weirdo, liked to say that this song was about the triumph of the human spirit, and you know what? I get it, JC. I really do. It's just a shame the entire thing falls apart once the yippie-yi-yays start up.
Anyway, lyrically, "Pop" would definitely have to be my favorite song. Because for one thing, they totally call out their critics in the very first verse.
Sick and tired of hearing all
These people talk about
What's the deal with this pop life
And when is it gonna fade out?
The thing you got to realize
What we're doing is not a trend
We've got the gift of melody
We're gonna bring it till the end
They make a very good point, you know. Pop music is not fucking new and it's always going to be around so stop complaining about it, damn. I love that "We've got the gift of melody" line, too. You do indeed, boys. You do indeed.
Another great thing about "Pop" is that it's kind of meta.
Do you ever wonder why
This music gets you high
It takes you on a ride
Feel it when your
Body starts to rock
And baby you can't stop
And the music's all you got
This must be pop
It's a pop song about pop songs! And boy, does it make pop music sound awesome.
My absolute favorite thing about "Pop", though? The fact that a year later, Justin did everything he could to distance himself from the pop scene. Despite, you know, writing a song about how great pop music is and how you shouldn't judge him for making it.
Hmm, "I Drive Myself Crazy" is excellent live. One, I actually like the sped up version on the NSA and Celebrity tours over the album version. And two, I love the a cappella intro.
I love the 2001 Grammys/PopOdyssey arrangement of "This I Promise You", a hell of a lot more than the album version. All instrumental breaks should just be replaced by the guys harmonizing.
Any and all of their a cappella suff is 1000% better live. They just sound so much better when singing in tandem, rather than recording their parts separately. What do we need to do to get them to sing "The Star-Spangled Banner" again?
Actually, I think my favorite live song would have to "It's Gonna Be Me", because that song has at least three different arrangements to choose from. There's the base album version, which they can sing perfectly while also dancing at full pelt. The remix from the 2000 VMAs, while not my favorite musically, is fun as hell to watch. The arrangement from their Ntimate Holiday Special, meanwhile, is perfection. Like, if they ever decide to make a comeback, chances are they're gonna rearrange a bunch of their songs to better fit their older image. If they end up being anything like "It's Gonna Be Me", I'm going to be a very happy fan.
I would like to preface this by saying a) my taste level is questionable as hell and b) I've got a weakness for ridiculousness. With that out of the way, sit a spell, this may take a while.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: I love these stupid costumes. I get kind of annoyed whenever I see this listed as one of their worst looks. Like, do people not get that these are costumes? No Strings Attached, marionettes, I mean really. When these guys pick a theme, they go all out. My favorite outfits of the bunch are Joey's and Chris' suits, mostly because of the purple lapels.
Of their television performances, these sets of outfits are my favorites for very different reasons. One, because rainbow pimp suits. That performance of "Just Got Paid" is like, the quintessential NSYNC performance. Flamboyant costumes, campy as fuck staging, excellent choreography, and solid vocals, especially the surprise a cappella breakdown in the middle of the performance.
And two, they're all actually dressed pretty reasonably for that performance of "Girlfriend"! I genuinely like every single one of their outfits. I actually kinda want JC's and Chris' jackets. This performance is just... so damn different from "Just Got Paid", but it's still so very them. You honestly couldn't define them, box them, or neatly label them. These fucks were goddamn chameleons and could probably perform anything, any genre, they could just stand on stage reading the telephone book, while still making it undeniably NSYNC. But anyway, I'm getting off track...
Rewinding a bit, the good ol' tight shirt/baggy pants combo they rocked back in the day. Don't give me that look. Actually, I don't even care. I love these outfits, no shame.
WHATEVER. I love whenever their stylists would make them wear the same outfit in different colors. Like they're Power Rangers or something. And as much as they liked to boast about picking out their own outfits back then, I refuse to believe they willing chose to dress like this, the vest/camo getups especially. Then again, this is NSYNC we're talking about. They probably thought it was so cool, smh.
I've got a soft spot for all the athletic wear they, err, wore pre-NSA. I don't know why! Less chance of them subjecting us to their poor fashion sense maybe.
~Theme photo shoots!~ OK, I'll be honest, I like the first one because I think Chris looks really fucking good in it. Chris should wear turtlenecks always, yes. And he's so obviously the leader of this band of spies. I don't know, I just think the styling for these shoots are really well done. Gets the theme across without being costume-y. Plus, I'm sure they inspired some AU fic and I can't hate on that.
SUUUUUITS! Well tailored, reasonably colored, non-tacky suits!
Ugh, these outfits are a big part of why I like the Celebrity Tour so much. I don't know, they just look so cute in their matching jackets. And I love whenever they do that "variants on the same type of outfit" thing. I will say though, I'm not feeling Chris' gigantic white vest. It somehow makes him look both heavier and smaller than he really is. He also looks distressingly skinny in that third picture, what the hell.
OH MAN. The typical reaction to these outfits seems to be "oh dear", which, yeah, ok, I can understand. There is a lot going on here. But the colors, man! They all look like they belong in a modern day/urban JRPG! Justin and JC are a mess, but the other three look pretty good in my opinion. At least Justin has that sweet jacket. Chris and Lance are my favorites here. I love Lance's checkered vest and the slightly too long sleeves. I want both Justin's and Chris' jackets and I really like the asymmetry of Chris' outfit, with the one glove and rolled up pant leg.
But you know, I think they look their best when they don't even try. Just put on a comfortable pair of pants and a simple shirt and call it a day.
Don't get me wrong, all of their tours were pretty spectacular.
Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now contains so many songs off their debut album, like "You Got It" and "Crazy For You", that sadly would end up being dropped in favor of their later stuff. Also, all of their tour costumes were jerseys and other sports wear and idk, I think it's charming.
No Strings Attached is NEAR PERFECTION, OK? We've all seen the Madison Square Garden concert, need I say more? My only gripe with it is how tightly choreographed the entire show was, which didn't leave much room for goofing around or interacting with the audience.
PopOdyssey, while technically impressive, just had too much going on. I still love it, but yeah, I feel like if I had seen it personally I'd have been annoyed by just how much I'd have to keep track of where they all were on that gigantic stage. Also? Parts of it felt like a delirious fever dream. (The mechanical bulls...)
The Celebrity Tour sort of harkened back to the days of Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now, with very few stage gimmicks. Just 5 dudes and their backing band and I love how stripped down the entire set up was, especially compared to the previous tour. The set list is also perhaps my most favorite of all their tours. They opened with "Do Your Thing"! They brought back "For the Girl Who Has Everything" and "Sailing"! They performed "Tell Me, Tell Me ...Baby" and "Girlfriend"! The new choreo for "Celebrity"! The Beatles medley! The Temptations medley! Chris and Joey getting a chance to shine during both medleys! The absolutely ridiculous blues version of "I Want You Back" and the talk section leading up to it! WHY ISN'T THIS TOUR ON DVD?!
